Just spent a lovely few days in Stewart Island.
The island has had it’s up and downs over the years – a boom bust cycle of mining/fishing/sawmilling/farming – but the population has been fairly stable at around 400 recently. There’s only one pub and limited accommodation options, but it’s gone through a tourism boom lately as our options for overseas travel has been limited by the pandemic. When the pub is busy with visitors, the locals sit and drink in a glorified bus stop next door, waiting for summer to end so they can go back to life as usual.
The man in the airport/post office was typically grumpy this morning. As he complained (loudly) to another local: “I’ve got two flights at 9:30 and 10:30, and then it’s really non stop, three more flights before four.” (All this whilst sitting on his bum, doing nothing that I could see). “Yes, I know what you mean! I was stuck behind four cars yesterday!” Head shakes all round.
The planes are 8 seaters so it doesn’t take many passengers to need a second plane. After checking in, you get taken to the airstrip to wait for your incoming flight. The grumpy lady who drove us up suddenly accelerated and raced across the tarmac once we’d got up there – she had to chase away the wild deer that was grazing nearby and at risk of being collected by the incoming plane. That was exciting. One person in charge of loading the luggage, checking us in, driving, and pest control, was actually less multitasking than we’d come across a few days before. In Invercargill, the same person who checks you in, takes your baggage to plane and loads it, shows you to your seats and does the inflight briefing, is also the pilot.
Once the incoming plane had landed and disembarked it’s passengers, we were ready for boarding. There is a spare seat next to the pilot, which would in normal circumstances be a copilot seat. It’s quite coveted. On our way across from Invercargill, it was given to a normal seeming middle aged man, but I was still concerned that if he was mentally unhinged he might have wrested the controls from the pilot and sent us down into the drink. Nothing like that on the way back to the mainland – on our return flight they put a seven year old girl in the copilots seat. I was aghast. What child could resist that shiny display of buttons and a steering wheel? Luckily her dad was sitting behind her, and secured her seat belt tightly, although after that he was too busy taking photos to pay any attention to what she was doing with her hands. The pilot just ignored her the whole flight.
I trust they won’t repeat this on the trip to Wellington- although who knows what goes on behind the cockpit door?